3.
10 BBY
Mara sighed as she stirred the pot for what must have been the millionth time. She hated Master Yoda's sense of humour at times, especially when he applied it to her training. He had ordered her to sit beside the bubbling pot of stew and keep on stirring until he returned. When she asked how long that would be, he chuckled and told her that to reveal that would ruin the exercise. She was to learn patience and focus, and being able to maintain those without knowing when the need for them would cease was, apparently, vital. And she would be the one to scrub the pan out if the food got burnt on.
It was a punishment, Mara knew. She had lost her temper with his stupid exercises the previous day, fed up of going over the same old thing again and again, never seeming to progress, and never starting to feel the power that would make her safer, make her be able to look after herself at last. After her outburst had ended, Master Yoda said nothing but merely sighed deeply and announced the day's lessons over.
This morning she had woken to the familiar sweet, sour smell of his usual stew and the sight of Master Yoda holding a wooden spoon up ready for her to take. A few words of instruction: "Stop stirring do not. Never let the stew become still, or know I will." And then he had tottered towards the archway out of the hovel, glancing back with just one last word of advice. "An opportunity, this is. To practice your skills in the Force, yes. But only if you think in the right way will it come."
Mara sent the best of her scowls at his back, but he disappeared outside without any indication of concern. She settled cross-legged beside the fire and started to stir, chin rested in her free hand.
After a very short time, boredom set in, and her arm began to ache. She tried changing hands a few times, but it didn't help with the boredom. Her mind ached for stimulation all the time. Life on Dagobah was usually anything but boring, divided as it was between lessons with Yoda, chores (some of which were a bit dull, but Yoda shared the work and made them companionable and fun), and in her limited free time, having the run of the jungle nearby, so full of life, provided endless possibilities for exploration. Despite the climate and the rough hut and strange food and creatures, she was, for the most part, happy in this strange place.
But stirring a pot was boring. Really, really boring. Master Yoda knew her too well.
With a sigh she remembered his last words and decided to apply them. Practice her skills. Well that was clear enough. Force applied to spoon would mean less work for her arm, right? But her control when moving objects was still not good. Even getting them moving at all was a great effort, much less directing what they did. Mara took a deep breath, and focused. Feeling the handle of the spoon through the Force, she let her hand drop away.
The spoon clunked against the side of the pot as she failed to even hold it upright. Mara scowled at it, quickly grasping the spoon again in her hand and stirring the gloopy stew hard before it could start to stick.
She tried a number more times with little improvement, and the effort of trying tired her far more than just stirring the stew by hand. Mara sighed once more. Knowing Yoda, that might be the point he was pushing. She resigned herself to the normal way being easier, if tedious, and stirred, and stirred, and stirred.
Before long, her mind began to drift. First, thoughts of her chores to be done, when Master Yoda would return, and whether he would relent and give her proper lessons today. The spoon in her hand turned, and turned. Thoughts of what she would do once her personal time arrived. The place in the story she was reading in the evenings, and where it would go next. Getting out into the jungle outside, finding her favourite hidey-hole, and acting out the more interesting parts of the tales with the rudimentary toy figures her Master had carved for her. The spoon moved round and round the pot, but her glazed eyes no longer saw it. The jungle outside, its moisture and luscious growth. The feel of it, beneath her feet, on her hands as she grasped vines, the dank air inside her nostrils. The sense of it, deep inside her, the emanating Force from all this life, reaching to every part of her, until she felt no longer inside the small hut but instead out there, part of it all…
And through the trees and leaves and vines and plants and animals, a luminous being, like a beacon drawing her in. She felt towards it through her sense in the Force. The familiar, safe sense of her protector and tutor, glowing within the Force, absorbed in his own working within the life energy of the Universe. He did not react to her mind's approach, and she found herself drawn into his own meditation, seeing with him what he saw.
Lush green rolling hills. A beautiful city. A grand, elegant building; a balcony. A small girl, dark haired, playing with small animal figures with a white haired companion. The girl turned as though expecting to see something behind her. Large brown eyes, framed in a pale face surrounded by that hair, which was trying to escape an elaborate style. Mara looked at her in fascination, this little girl who must be around her own age. The girl stepped to the balcony balustrade, looking around, out at the glorious landscape, a smile of happiness and love for her home on her lips, before turning again and re-joining her game with her friend.
The vision slipped backwards, out across plains, up into the sky, through atmosphere, faster and faster, flying through the stars before abruptly focusing on two brilliant suns over a yellow planet. Down the vision flew, to sun starched, barren plains, light so brilliant the land itself was blinding. Flying across rolling landscape again, but this time shifting hills of yellow. To a white dome shaped building beside a hole in the baked ground. In the shadow of the building, a small boy sat, hair bright blonde as though to match the sand around him. Rough toys carved from whitened wood and formed out of pieces of scrap metal were scattered around him. One sat in his hand, meant to be some kind of fighter, and he arched it through the air around him, mouth pursed to make noises Mara could not make out. Abruptly he looked up, right at them, but frowned in confusion, as though he saw nothing there, and went back to his swooping arm movements.
Abruptly, Mara felt them pull back, through atmosphere, through space, back into Dagobah's familiar environment – and found herself tipped abruptly out of the vision and back into herself in the little hut.
Hitchhiker have I gained, she heard Yoda's voice in her mind. Stay there until I get back, you will.
Mara's eyes widened as she focused once again on the stew in front of her and started stirring vigorously. She could feel the thickness at the bottom of the pan as globs of food had started to burn on to it. How long had she been inside Yoda's vision? She stirred for all she could as she waited for her Master to return, desperately trying to scrape the burnt bits from the bottom.
In quicker time than seemed likely for the elderly figure, Yoda's small form shuffled through the doorway. Mara ducked her head down, focusing on the stew, in the vain hope that Yoda may have forgotten he incident in the few minutes that had passed. Instead, he came over and sat on the other side of the hearth, resting both hands on the top of his walking stick, and stared at her intently.
"An aptitude, it seems you have, for the skills of seeing and communicating through the Force."
Mara looked up at him cautiously. He didn't seem to be angry. But then, Master Yoda never did, really, though he pretended at it sometimes.
"Heh, heh, learned my lesson a little too well, you did. Serves me right, I suppose."
"You… you wanted me to meditate?" she asked cautiously.
"Yes. Many of these boring exercises intended to focus your ability to meditate are. Succeeded at your task, you did."
"Oh." She stirred the pot again. "Even though I burnt the stew?"
"Heh, unfortunate but necessary price it was. Expect you to do so well, I did not. Saw too much, you did."
"Who were they?" she asked, burning with curiosity. Other children, like her. It seemed a miracle they existed, a strange dream.
Master Yoda sighed. "Special children are they. Strong in the Force, but with a tragic history, a difficult future."
Mara frowned. "Why are you not training them then? Like me?"
Her Master shook his head. "Too dangerous it is. They would be found, and hurt, and never fulfil their destinies. And fulfil them they must, or all is lost."
"Oh." Her heart sank a little, as her imagination had already raced away with the idea of them coming here to Yoda, training with them, being her friends. "What about me? Do I have a destiny?"
He pursed his lips. "Difficult to see. Many futures, all too different to pull apart. Hope I do, that one day help these younglings in their task to return the Jedi to the Galaxy you will."
"Can I see them again? Through the Force?"
"No, too dangerous it is. Today was unintended, but untrained as you are, your seeking them could drawn attention from those that hurt them would." Yoda reached over and took the spoon from her hand. He ladled out a little of the mixture and sipped at it, only wincing slightly at the ruined flavour. "Hmm, good this is, little one. Eat, eat."
Feeling exhausted and sensing the conversation to be over, Mara pulled a couple of bowls from the shelf to be filled.
